This is the point I finally realized I was in Beijing. Until now it had been somewhat surreal. I grew up in San Francisco, so I'm used to signs in Chinese, and I go to Berkeley so it's not that strange for me to end up almost entirely surrounded by East Asians. You can see the so much of the city from this vantage point that it really provides you with an identifiably Chinese sense of place.
At some point, I will get Summer Palace pictures up (I unfortunately forgot my camera)...it is one of the most spectacular places in the world, besides so spectacular that it's almost surreal, you can't see Beijing at all, making it lack sense of place of Tiantan. Then again, part of the Summer Palace might look a bit more like this soon; they're putting up million dollar condos on its southern end, so maybe the serenity it's been famous for centuries will finally be injected with some unwelcome city life.
EAP China! Robert Klein